The Language of Love and Respect: Cracking the Communication Code with Your Mate

Summary

A Revolutionary Solution to the #1 Marriage Problem

Why does communication between couples remain the number one marriage issue? “Because,” says Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, “most spouses don’t know that they speak two different languages. They are sending each other messages in ‘code,’ but they won’t crack that code until they see that she listens to hear the language of love and he listens to hear the language of respect.”

Dr. Eggerichs’ best-selling book, Love & Respect, launched a revolution in how couples relate to each other. In The Language of Love & Respect, he presents a practical, step-by-step approach for how husbands and wives can learn to speak each other’s distinctly different language—respect for him, love for her. The result is mutual understanding and a successful, happy marriage.

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INTRODUCTION

Is Communication Really

the Key to Marriage?

Ever since Love & Respect was published in the fall of 2004, we have received two kinds of responses: (1) Love & Respect hit a marital nerve as thousands of couples experienced significant breakthroughs in their marriages; (2) others still carry burdens as they struggle to get off what I call the Crazy Cycle and have a marriage God blesses.

The breakthrough letters are thrilling to read. Husbands tell us they have learned what can happen when they use loving words to communicate with wives, and wives tell us they have been astounded at the difference it makes when they use respectful words to communicate with their husbands. Here are just two examples from literally thousands of letters and e-mails.

A wife writes to tell us she is amazed at how the Love and Respect message has healed her marriage:

When I converse with my husband, I listen to his heart and filter the words through his can’t survive and thrive without RESPECT need. No matter what he is saying, I remind myself that he is a good-willed man. . . . If necessary, I start with an apology for my lack of respect, and then we talk through the issues at hand. He does the same thing with me concerning my need to be loved and—Wow!—have we been having fun!

A husband shares that he and his wife have a new perspective on each other:

[The Love and Respect message has] opened our eyes to a new way of thinking about how we are to interact and view each other’s roles as designed by God. We understand each other in a new way, and that has led to dramatically improved communications! I already see a difference in myself, how I act and react. . . . This has helped me put my feelings into words that [my wife] can understand, and I am beginning to see how what I say and how I say it can feel hurtful to her.

The tongue of the wise brings healing (Proverbs 12:18).

The letters and e-mails keep pouring in. People hear about the Love and Respect Connection through our conferences, DVDs, and books. Love and Respect is being taught in classes of all kinds—in adult Sunday school, in small groups in homes, and in kitchens by wives who want to share with other wives what they have learned that has turned their marriage around.

Love and Respect Is No Magic Formula

Breakthroughs are happening, but Love and Respect is not some kind of magic formula. We get plenty of letters from couples who have read Love & Respect, attended a conference, or watched a DVD, and, while they get the point, they still struggle to get off their Crazy Cycle.

One wife admitted that she and her husband had attended a Love and Respect Conference and got some help, but she went on to say, How faithfully are we implementing the principles? Well, we did at first, but how easily we can go back into old patterns . . . I know we are both growing individually. It is just not showing up too well in our marriage yet.

Another wife confesses:

I wish I could give you great news about understanding the Crazy Cycle and being able to make changes in my marriage. Unfortunately, my husband hasn’t been on board even though I have tried giving him compliments and respecting him. He isn’t able to receive them because I have criticized him in the past. We are now separated, although living in the same house. I continue to try and pray things will change soon.

One husband who attended a Love and Respect Conference with his wife tried to put what he learned into action, but because she was hurting so deeply, she did not respond to his honest attempts to be more loving. He says:

When I asked her about things she wants to change in me, she said I was putting words in her mouth. . . . She is bringing up things I have done in the past, so the wounds are probably the driving force here. If I hear you right, I will need to suffer through a time of showing love, humility, and no defensiveness, or we will probably not get out of this mess.

It’s harder to make amends with an offended friend than to capture a fortified city. Arguments separate friends like a gate locked with iron bars (Proverbs 18:19 NLT).

Communication Is the Biggest Challenge

In a survey conducted by Focus on the Family for the Love and Respect Ministries, respondents were asked, What was (and possibly still is) the biggest problem affecting your marriage? For men and women the biggest problem by far was lack of communication.¹ Focus on the Family’s findings coincide with our own at Love and Respect Ministries. As we study letters and e-mails from thousands of spouses, the common thread that runs through almost all of them is that, in one way or another, the major challenge for the typical couple is communication.

It would be easy enough, then, to deduce that communication is the key to marriage, but I don’t agree. To say that communication is the key to marriage is to assume that both spouses speak the same language.

After more than three decades of pastoring, counseling married couples, and conducting marriage conferences, I have learned that, in fact, the wife speaks a love language and the husband speaks a respect language. They don’t realize this, of course, but because he is speaking one kind of language (respect) and she is speaking another (love), there is little or no understanding and little or no communication.

If I don’t understand what someone is saying, I am a stranger to that person. And that person is a stranger to me (1 Corinthians 14:11 NIRV).

As I have shared in Love & Respect, my wife, Sarah, and I learned that we speak different languages through practical personal experience. While we had a good marriage, we still struggled with irritation, anger, and plenty of hurt feelings. Often we just couldn’t communicate, but we didn’t know why. A lot of the time it seemed that indeed we were speaking different languages, but we had no idea what to do about it. It was frustrating—and embarrassing. After all, I was a pastor and should have had the answer to something like this! Fortunately, I finally found the answer—or, more correctly, God revealed it to me—in a single passage of Scripture, Ephesians 5:33: each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband (NIV).

As I pondered God’s clear command (not suggestion) in Ephesians 5:33, I uncovered what I came to call the Love and Respect Connection. I am commanded to love Sarah because she needs love; in fact, she speaks love. Love is the language she understands. But when I speak to her in unloving ways, her tendency is to react with disrespectful words. Sarah is commanded to respect me because I need respect; in fact, I speak respect. Respect is the language I understand. But when she speaks to me in disrespectful ways, my tendency is to react with unloving words. Round and round we would go in a Crazy Cycle, each saying things that were the exact opposite of what was needed!

As far as the Lord is concerned, men and women need each other (1 Corinthians 11:11 CEV). She needs his love; he needs her respect.

Mutual Understanding Became the

Key to Our Marriage

In chapter 2, In Marriage, the Mouth Matters, I will explain in more detail how Ephesians 5:33 gave Sarah and me what we needed to start speaking each other’s language. Basically, I needed to speak more lovingly to her, and she needed to speak more respectfully to me. These changes were not easy or automatic. We took baby steps at first, but soon we were making progress, and eventually we had a major breakthrough.

As I spoke Sarah’s mother tongue of love and Sarah spoke my mother tongue of respect, we became friends who shared mutual understanding. For years we had been like a Russian and an Israeli, speaking our different languages. All we did was get louder as we tried to get our respective points across! But as we began to learn each other’s vocabulary—as I learned some of her love language, and she learned some of my respect language—amazing things happened. Not only did we start understanding each other (in many ways for the first time), but our communication improved dramatically. This is why I say the key to any marriage is a mutual understanding of each other’s language. It is the mutual understanding that leads to good communication. (For more on the language barrier between husband and wife, see chapter 3, Not Wrong, Just Different.)

Does this mean our marriage is completely free of stress, disagreement, and tension? Of course not! Sarah and I still argue over some of the same old things; we still get irritated with each other for certain habits and practices. But now we know how to communicate with each other and deal with our problems. We don’t know it all, but we know a great deal more than we did before we started living with Love and Respect.

As Sarah and I have heard and seen the responses to Love & Respect and to our Love and Respect Conferences (which we hold twenty weeks a year), we’ve recognized that there is much more we can share about how husband and wife can communicate with each other and with God, who is the centerpiece of every marriage puzzle. That’s why we have crafted this book—to help you apply the principles of Love and Respect so that you will learn to communicate more effectively by gaining mutual understanding. Basic communication principles from Love & Respect are expanded, and many new ideas and concepts are added. No matter what your issue is—criticism, constant conflict, sex, money, parenting, etc., etc.—we share how learning the vocabulary of Love and Respect can help you experience a richer communion as you begin to understand each other and communicate in the way that God intended.

Love and Respect is the way to use wisdom and understanding to establish your home (Proverbs 24:3 CEV).

A lot, of course, depends on you and how open you are to the simple idea that husbands and wives speak in two languages—hers the language of love, his the language of respect. We know Love and Respect does not click with everyone—at least right away. One wife writes to tell us her husband uses the Love and Respect DVDs for target practice; a husband e-mails us to say he thinks the Love and Respect message is great, but his wife thinks we have no clue about women and, to put it bluntly, I am a chauvinist. But extreme reactions like these only tend to prove our case: a marriage can be fertile ground for disagreement and strong feelings. We know, however, that if you are serious (desperate?) about improving your marriage, Love and Respect can help you succeed or get even better, and that’s what The Language of Love & Respect is all about.

So, we are ready to begin, but first, a special note about chapter 1, A Short Course on Love and Respect. In this chapter you will find a condensation of our book Love & Respect (Integrity, 2004). If you have read Love & Respect, chapter 1 can serve as a review and reminder of Love and Respect principles. Of course, if you feel you need no review, just skip right to chapter 2 to start the discussion of how to improve your mutual understanding and communication through Love and Respect. Some readers, however, may be totally unfamiliar with how Love and Respect works. For you, chapter 1 is an invaluable introduction that will acquaint you with Love and Respect terminology and concepts. This Short Course on Love and Respect can help bring you up to speed and make The Language of Love & Respect all the more helpful and beneficial.

So, choose where you want to begin: chapter 1 to either review Love & Respect or be introduced to the total system; chapter 2 to get started on your journey toward mutual understanding and better communication in your marriage. And may God richly bless that journey.

Emerson Eggerichs

January 2007

PART I

A Book Within a Book

The chapter to follow is really a book within a book—a summary of the key points I made in Love & Respect (Integrity, 2004). This chapter offers an overview of the Love and Respect system, which you may have learned at a Love and Respect Conference, from a Love and Respect DVD, or by reading the earlier book. If you are unfamiliar with the Love and Respect system, this overview will teach you its basic principles and show you how applying them can improve your marriage whether you are currently on the Crazy Cycle, the Energizing Cycle, or the Rewarded Cycle.

CHAPTER ONE

A Short Course on

Love and Respect

The Love and Respect approach to marriage is based on the awareness that any couple is always potentially on one of three cycles: the Crazy Cycle, the Energizing Cycle, or the Rewarded Cycle. None of these cycles is a permanent, static situation. A lot of couples, however, seem to spend most of their time on the Crazy Cycle, which is summed up like this:

WITHOUT LOVE, SHE REACTS WITHOUT RESPECT.

WITHOUT RESPECT, HE REACTS WITHOUT LOVE.

Clearly, the Crazy Cycle triggers and fuels itself. When a wife feels unloved, she tends to react in ways that feel disrespectful to her husband. When a husband feels disrespected, he tends to react in ways that feel unloving to his wife. And around and around they go—on the Crazy Cycle.

Love and Respect Must Be Unconditional

Scripture offers the answer to the Crazy Cycle in Ephesians 5:33—Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband (NIV). This verse is the summary statement of the greatest treatise on marriage in the New Testament: Ephesians 5:22–33. In verse 33 Paul pens God’s commands (not suggestions) that husbands must love their wives and that wives must respect their husbands. What is more, the love and respect are to be unconditional.

When a husband chooses to come across lovingly even though he feels disrespected, he can prevent the Crazy Cycle from spinning and possibly getting out of control. When a wife chooses to come across respectfully even though she feels unloved, she can stop or slow the Crazy Cycle as well. On the other hand, life gets insane when a husband says to himself, "I’m not going to love that woman until she starts showing me some respect! I’ll not talk to her! Likewise, madness reigns when a wife says to herself, I’m not going to respect that man until he earns my respect and starts loving me the way he should. I’ll teach him!"

The secret to building a happy relationship is to recognize when you are on the Crazy Cycle—when you are not communicating, when you are in some level of conflict, be it mild or severe, or when life together just isn’t going well. The Crazy Cycle can be low-key, with both of you trying to keep the lid on, or it can be intense, with angry remarks, biting sarcasm, shouting, and worse. The point is, whatever the intensity level of your Crazy Cycle, one and often both of you are doing crazy, dumb things that drive the other one nuts. Spouses may be doing these crazy things deliberately or unthinkingly, but always they are reacting to a lack of love (for her) or a lack of respect (for him).

Although the Crazy Cycle is not what God intends for any marriage, all couples get on it at times to one degree or another. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 7:28 Paul flatly states that when two people marry they will face many troubles in this life (NIV). Such troubles can come in many ways, but one of the most common is that the best of husbands will say or do things that feel unloving to his wife or the best of wives will say or do things that feel disrespectful to her husband. As any married couple knows, life presents all kinds of opportunities for this to happen.

Sex Tonight? Who Decides?

Earlier in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul addresses a common problem in marriage: sexual relations. He makes it clear that the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does (v. 4).

Paul’s words seem to describe a standoff. So who decides tonight whether or not there will be sexual intimacy? If he verbally pushes the issue, will she feel used and unloved? If she verbally declines, will he feel disrespected? Most couples know what this situation is like. All too often it turns into a clash. Feeling unloved, she speaks words of contempt: "It’s always all about you. You never think of how I might be feeling. Smarting from what he perceives as disrespect and frigid unconcern for his needs, he speaks harshly and unlovingly: You always have a headache. You care more about the kids than me. I’m just a meal ticket to you."

Obviously, inflammatory remarks like this get the Crazy Cycle shifting into high gear in a hurry. But does either spouse really intend for this to happen? Rarely. Most spouses are full of goodwill: each means the other no harm, but wants only good things to happen between them. Note that Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:33–34 the one who is married is concerned about. . . how he may please his wife. . . [or] how she may please her husband. In the normal flow of marriage, neither gets up in the morning thinking, How can I displease my mate or show I am not concerned about my spouse’s needs? Nonetheless, as the day goes by, things happen. Without realizing it, he may sound harsh and unloving, and she reacts with disrespect. Or she may treat him with disrespect in one of a dozen different little ways, and he reacts by not being loving. Conflict occurs, and that is when spouses can get nasty with each other. Both spouses are goodwilled people, but it sure doesn’t seem that way at the moment!

And the problem concerning sex tonight—yes or no still remains. How can two goodwilled people deal with this issue so that they both feel loved and respected? Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 7:3–4 offers some excellent clues: The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality—the husband seeking to satisfy his wife, the wife seeking to satisfy her husband. Marriage is not a place to ‘stand up for your rights’ (MSG).

Peterson’s phrase place of mutuality points to the idea of creating a win-win situation. When the Crazy Cycle is going strong, both spouses are in a win-lose frame of mind. Spouses who seek a Love and Respect kind of marriage have many tools and techniques at their disposal to slow and stop the Crazy Cycle and create a win-win. Couples practicing Love and Respect learn that, because she sees and hears in pink and he sees and hears in blue, they are markedly different. In order to understand these differences, they need to realize that they send each other messages in code and they must learn how to decode each other.

The Issue Is Seldom the Real Issue

Just about every couple knows what it is like to get into a conflict that escalates into a full-blown argument and they are not sure why it happened. Spouses tend to write off these kind of arguments, saying, If only she weren’t so sensitive or If only he weren’t so touchy. But those aren’t the real issues at all. For example, when he hasn’t called and gets home late for dinner and she erupts in criticism and tears, saying he is an unloving human being, the real issue isn’t his lateness or her bitter criticism of his integrity. The real issue is that she feels unloved, and when she angrily attacks his character, he feels disrespected. After all, she knows that he often has to work late. It’s part of his job.

The Crazy Cycle happens when spouses focus on their own needs and overlook the needs of the other. That’s when the issues arise. The wife needs love; she is not trying to be disrespectful. The husband needs respect; he is not trying to be unloving. And once the Love and Respect couple grasps a basic principle—that the apparent issue is not the real issue at all—they are on their way to cracking the communication code.

Stay Off Each Other’s Air Hose

Another key to slowing and stopping the Crazy Cycle is to realize that the wife needs love just as she needs air to breathe. Picture, if you will, that the wife has an air hose leading to a love tank. When her husband steps on her air hose or pinches it in some way with unloving behavior, he will see her deflate before his eyes. He is stepping on her air hose, and she is crying out, I feel unloved by you right now. Why are you doing this to me?

On the wife’s side of the Love and Respect equation, she should picture her husband with his own air hose leading to his respect tank. As long as her respect is flowing through his air hose, he is fine, but if she starts to pinch or cut his air hose with sharp, critical remarks, his supply of respect will leak or be cut off, and he will react negatively because his deepest need is not being met. When either spouse’s air hose is cut off in some way, the other will respond in kind. Both air hoses shut down, and the battle—the Crazy Cycle—is on!

Being aware that men see and hear in blue and women see and hear in pink (very differently) is extremely important. Working at decoding each other’s messages is essential. Being careful not to step on each other’s air hose (hers leads to her love tank; his leads to his respect tank) is vital. But all this information will do a marriage little good unless both spouses commit themselves to the tasks of unconditional love (by the husband toward the wife) and unconditional respect (by the wife toward the husband).

Unconditional Really Means Unconditional

Wives have little trouble grasping the meaning of unconditional love. God has wired them to love, but while they tell me they truly do love their husbands, they can’t respect their men because of their unloving behavior. They continue to demand that their husbands earn their respect. Love is all that matters. If their husbands would simply love them as they should, all would be well.

For many wives, the concept of unconditional respect seems to be an oxymoron (a term created by putting together two words that appear to be incongruous or contradictory). But when a wife insists that her husband earn her respect, she puts him in a lose-lose situation. If he must unconditionally love his wife as she demands and he must earn her respect as well, he is likely to just give up, shut down, and say, I can never be good enough for you.

A major reason why wives have such a hard time with unconditional respect for their husbands is that they see and hear in pink while their husbands see and hear in blue. One wife described the problem perfectly: We think so differently. I don’t even relate to what he considers respect—or the lack of it. I struggled to help marriages for many years before I saw the answer to this problem in Ephesians 5:33. God is saying in so many words, Yes, the two of you are very different, and I am telling you to love and respect unconditionally anyway.

Since that discovery of what was there all the time in plain sight, I have tried to convince wives that the best way to motivate their husbands to love them is to show them respect whether they deserve it or not. Women need to learn how to understand and use the word respect because, in truth, respect is what a man most values. By the same token, his wife’s contempt is what a man most fears. And no husband will feel love and affection toward his wife if she seems to despise who he is as a human being.

Does unconditional respect mean a wife must respect evil behavior? Let me qualify what I mean by unconditional respect. Just as a husband is to come across lovingly even though his wife is not lovable, so a wife is to come across respectfully even though her husband is not respectable. This does not mean a wife must say, I respect the way you get angry and refuse to talk to me. Such a statement is as silly as a husband saying, I love the way you nag and criticize me. This is not about loving or respecting sinful behavior. This is about lovingly or respectfully confronting inappropriate behavior.

Unconditional respect, like unconditional love, is all about how one sounds (tone of voice and word choice) and appears (facial expressions and physical actions). A husband may not deserve respect because he has not earned respect, but a wife’s disrespect for him is ineffective long-term—and not biblical. No husband responds to disrespectful attitudes any more than a wife responds to unloving attitudes. Yes, if a wife is lovable, it makes it easy for her husband to love her, but the command of God to love one’s wife has nothing to do with her being lovable. And if a husband is respectable, it makes it easy for a wife to respect him, but the command of God to respect one’s husband has nothing to do with him being respectable. The Love and Respect message is not about a husband earning his wife’s respect by being more loving any more than it is about a wife earning her husband’s love by being more respectful. Always, Love or Respect is given unconditionally, according to God’s commands.

On the wife’s side, her greatest value is love. One of her greatest fears is that, if she shows her husband respect, he will treat her like a doormat, abuse her, or worse. Feminist voices have trumpeted this idea for years, but I don’t buy it. The man with basic goodwill wants to serve his wife, and he would even die for her. When his wife shows him unconditional respect, in most cases he will feel like a prince and be motivated to show her the kind of unconditional love she desires. She is not a doormat or a slave. She is a princess who is loved and, by the way, respected also. Another key passage full of Love and Respect truth is 1 Peter 3:1–7. Peter teaches wives to show respectful behavior (v. 2) even when their husbands are being disobedient to the word (v. 1), and he goes on to say that husbands are to show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life (v. 7). To honor a wife is to respect her and treat her as an equal.

To carry further the word picture of the prince and princess, I believe the biblical order sees the husband (the prince) as first among equals. This is a responsibility, not a right. The husband and wife are equal in God’s sight, but he is called upon to be the first to provide, to protect, to even die for his wife if necessary. The husband instinctively knows this and wants to fulfill his responsibility. On the other hand, the wife (the princess) instinctively thirsts to be valued as first in importance. Nothing energizes her more. This is not self-centeredness; it is her God-given nature.

When the wife respects the husband as first among equals and he honors her as first in importance, their marriage is balanced, and the Crazy Cycle will not spin. Granted, achieving this balance is not easy, especially if the Crazy Cycle has been spinning for a long time. A wife can slip back into wanting him to earn her respect; a husband can slip back into getting discouraged, thinking, What’s the use? Typically, he may go into the familiar male funk known as stonewalling (refusing to talk, which drives the typical woman crazy). She may try unconditional respect and then begin to feel like a hypocrite because she really doesn’t feel respectful, or she may remember all those hurts her husband caused with his lack of love and wonder, Can I ever forgive him? Naturally enough, the husband will be tempted to pull away. Since she really can’t sustain this respect thing, what’s the use? All he hears is how he’s blown it again. How could anyone love that woman! Such a reaction is all too common. And let it be noted that, in describing these interactions, I am not justifying either’s behavior but wishing for each to discover the power of staying the course with their Love and Respect responses.

Love & Respect is full of stories of husbands and wives who struggled to tame the Crazy Cycle yet succeeded. Wives have learned how to respect even when they don’t feel like it, even when feeling rejected by their husbands’ refusal to talk. Husbands have learned to love even in the face of a wife’s criticism and contempt. They have learned to take the faultfinding from their wives and rebound in order to prove their unconditional love.

In short, couples can learn that marriage is a two-become-one proposition. Hundreds—and it’s going on thousands—of letters prove this to be true. The Love and Respect Connection is stopping the Crazy Cycle in marriages all over the country. If husband and wife can commit to meeting each other’s primary needs—unconditional love for her and unconditional respect for him—they will take a giant step toward keeping the Crazy Cycle under control.

Remember, you can never completely get off the Crazy Cycle. She will always see and hear in pink, and he in blue, which means the smallest things can cause the Crazy Cycle to start revving its engines. Does this mean you must always live on edge—walking on eggshells to avoid trouble? Not at all. There is another cycle that will help you build a stronger, happier, more biblical marriage as you energize each other with Love and Respect.

The Energizing Cycle Keeps the Crazy Cycle in Its Cage

While there are ways to slow or stop the Crazy Cycle (remember, you never get completely off ), it can always start up again and usually does, even for happy, well-adjusted couples. The way to keep the Crazy Cycle in its cage is to get on the Energizing Cycle, which is summed up like this:

HIS LOVE MOTIVATES HER RESPECT.

HER RESPECT MOTIVATES HIS LOVE.

Couples are on the Energizing Cycle when they are practicing Love and Respect principles. To show their love, husbands live out the principles summed up in the acronym C-O-U-P-L-E, which provides six ways to spell love for a wife:

C — Closeness She wants you to be close—and not just when you want sex.

O— Openness She wants you to open up to her, to talk and not be closed off, acting angry or disinterested.

To show their respect, wives live out the principles summed up in the acronym C-H-A-I-R-S, which offers six biblical ways to spell respect for a husband’s deepest desires:

C — Conquest Recognize and thank him for his desire to work.

H— Hierarchy Thank him for his motivation to protect and provide for you.

A — Authority Acknowledge his desire to lead—and don’t subvert his leadership.

I — Insight Listen appreciatively to his ideas and the advice he wishes to offer.

R — Relationship Value his desire for you to be his friend and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

S — Sexuality Respond to his need for you sexually; don’t deprive him.

The two acronyms listed above are not just magic words or cure-all formulas. The Energizing Cycle will work only if you do. And as you practice C-O-U-P-L-E or C-H-A-I-R-S, your marriage will be happier, stronger, more biblical, and more honoring to God.

C-O-U-P-L-E: A Checkup for Husbands

If a husband applies just one of the C-O-U-P-L-E concepts each day, he takes giant steps toward making his wife feel loved. To check himself on how well he is practicing C-O-U-P-L-E, the husband should ask himself the following biblically based questions on a regular (at least weekly) basis:

Closeness—Because a husband is to cleave unto his wife (Genesis 2:24 KJV), my face-to-face time with her causes her to feel emotionally connected and energized.

Have I been moving toward my wife or away from her? Realizing her deep need to share with me, have I set aside time to talk to her face-to-face? Do I tell her on a regular basis that I love her, admire her, and appreciate her—or do I save those remarks for when I want sex?

Openness—Because a husband is not to be harsh (annoyed and resentful) toward his wife (see Colossians 3:19 NIV), I must counter any ten dencies to be withdrawn or preoccupied, making her think I have no intentions of being tender and transparent with her.

Do I share my thoughts and problems with her (a big part of Closeness), or do I keep things to myself to prove I am strong and capable? Do I come across as irritated or angry when she tries to draw me out, or am I open and transparent when she shows concern or curiosity? Do I turn my spirit more toward TV and the newspaper than toward the heart of my wife?

Understanding—Because a husband is to live with his wife in an understanding way (1 Peter 3:7), I need to be attentive to her womanly concerns (even though I may not share her interests) because I want to make her feel understood and cared about.